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Topic: Samyang 14mm f2.8 - focusing (Read 3771 times)

I bought a Samyang 14mm f2.8 wide angle lens for my 5D3 and it arrived yesterday.

This is the first ultra wide angle lens I have used and as we know it is a manual lens so no AF.

On my first test with this lens I have had real trouble focusing - this seems impossible using the viewfinder and I had to resort to using live view in magnified mode to lock on to a foreground subject.

Any people out there on the forum got this lens and have any tips for focusing with it?

I am really please with the quality but don't want to spend five minutes at every shot getting focus.

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Some people have added a focus confirmation chip to it or they use a different focusing screen. Others learn to set it to max DOF. But if the FG subject is close and you want critically sharp focus (rather than trying to hide it in the DOF), then live view is the way to go.

I have heard that at f8 the DOF is massive - it's mainly for focusing on foreground objects I am struggling.

I am hoping the AF chip I have ordered helps, I dont want to have to spend five minutes setting up each shot and checking focus.

DOF increases quite a bit but the depth of critical sharpness is still thin, so it ultimately depends on how large the final image will be. I find that I often prefer having the subject critically sharp and letting the DOF fall where it may rather than burying the subject in the zone of acceptable sharpness.

For landscape work, focus confirmation isn't really going to add a lot for you; you're going to want to focus on the object you want sharpest, and possible focus blend shots anyway.

For people or things that move, the AF confirmation will help, but, getting comfortable with hyperfocal will help more. You'll learn to eyeball "oh, that's 1m", etc. Cause really, at f/2.8, unless you are at minimum focus distance, you've got a few feet of focus to work with

For landscape work, focus confirmation isn't really going to add a lot for you; you're going to want to focus on the object you want sharpest, and possible focus blend shots anyway.

For people or things that move, the AF confirmation will help, but, getting comfortable with hyperfocal will help more. You'll learn to eyeball "oh, that's 1m", etc. Cause really, at f/2.8, unless you are at minimum focus distance, you've got a few feet of focus to work with

I probably wont be using it for landscapes, more for shots with foreground subjects so this is why the focusing is more critical to me.The very long throw of the focus ring also puts me off just now, it's much longer then any of my Canon lenses and it taking a lot of getting used to.It's my first ultra wide so the concept of shooting with them is still strange to me - the fact that everything is "far away" when you look through the viewfinder.I have done some test shots at f4 and f8 - f8 seems to be a sweet spot on my lens while still retaining a degree of viewfinder brightness, stop down more and the viewfinder view becomes very dark indeed.AF confirmation chip on it's way so hopefully that will help.